Materials: how does sticky tape stick?

Self-tutoring about materials: the tutor looks at sticky tape.

The sticky coating on tape (the adhesive) consists of long chains of molecules that don’t like to change shape, but can. When you press the tape down onto a surface, you’re changing the shapes of those long chains of molecules. That’s why you have to press hard: to make them change shape even though they don’t want to. Now, stuck to the new surface, those molecular chains have changed shape, but they don’t want to change again. Pulling the tape free would make them change shape once more, so they resist it by sticking to the surface they’re now attached to. That’s how tape sticks.

Source:

scientificamerican.com

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.

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